Tesla reveals two Robotaxi crashes involving teleoperators | Hacker News Reader

Tesla reveals two Robotaxi crashes involving teleoperators

techcrunch.com

58 pointsBrajeshwar58 comments

It would be fascinating to know where the remote drivers were located that were remotely controlling these vehicles. Wasn’t there a big hubbub about using remote staff in the Philippines a while ago? This can change the reliability profile quite a bit. (Internet quality)

Driving skill (and road manners) is also a serious issue, not only Internet quality (it's mostly solved nowadays with dual 5G/dual residential, Starlink is also available, np), getting a driver license is basically just paying a fixer for $200 (equivalent in PHP) and even if you attend the school genuinely and all, it's still super easy versus the west.

i think the bigger problem is the mechanical turk "solution" where remote drivers are suppose to suddenly be a driver in corner cases as if thats a safe fallback

This is not how it works. The vehicle autonomously stops and/or pulls over, and then a remote driver takes over. Control is not handed over to a remote driver while the vehicle is barreling down the road and "jesus take the wheel"

> Starlink is also available, np

I would NOT be using Starlink for remote vehicle teleoperation even as a fall back.

> even as a fall back

Why this?

Latency

> Latency

One, a low-latency fallback beats no fallback. Two, at least for Waymo, the system is engineered to be high latency. Back-up drivers seldom directly drive the car, and when they do, it's not at the last minute. Instead, they give high-level instructions the car actuates.

I don't get it, you prefer a road accident?

I would personally prefer if companies didn’t offer services that simply don’t or can’t work as advertised.

Weirdly, in 2026, this is a controversial opinion.

this is 100% because we are under full-on cultism. you say anything anti-Tesla and army of elon defenders will go after you immediately. none of them would put their kids in one of these “robo”taxi “F”SD shits but they will defend elon/tesla mercilessly

To be fair it seems worse on the other side here on HN at least, I rarely see positive comments about Elon, so both sides seems to be doing the echo-chamber and defender mode, it's getting seriously absurd to not be able to have talk on technology itself without it getting into politic, especially for non-US residents :/

> I would NOT be using Starlink for remote vehicle teleoperation even as a fall back.

I had to use Starlink last year, and latency was way more acceptable than expected even when under load (I did try to analyze and remove bufferbloat). Considering Tesla could likely get priority bandwidth from SpaceX basically for free, that would mean good latencies (I had 90ms tops in speedtests). Anyway you tell the car where to go, but it's the car following the path you draw for it and following traffic rules and collision avoidance, you're not directly driving the car. Even 1 second latency with 2s round-trip would likely not be a problem in these conditions.

90ms is absolutely not an acceptable delay. On a 25mph road, each 90ms is .0006 mile ~= 1 meter. Latency goes both ways, so that is a possible 1 meter before operator reacts and another meter before the corrective action takes place. Like other comment mentioned, remote operations can only be used for high-level instructions (or simpler highway driving).

You might be overestimating how hard it is to get a license in the states.

My test was literally pay private driving school operator $50, pull onto a four lane road, change lanes, change lanes back, turn right three times to get back to the road, turn left, park successfully between the lines nose in, …and here’s a piece of paper for the DMV to give you a license. Maybe ten minutes, and have never had anyone check to see if I still know the rules in the 20 years since.

I’m sure it has gotten harder in some places, but we really don’t ask for much of new drivers.

Not just the test though. In some states you need approaching 100 hours of signed off driving with an experienced driver (honor system though) and a certified course

What state? This source seems to indicate that 70 hours is the extreme upper limit, with some states allowing as few as 6.

https://www.iihs.org/research-areas/teenagers/graduated-lice...

Ah. Good fact check. I swapped the numbers on minimum community service hours to graduate high school and this. But I think my point still stands that you can't just walk in and take the test

Having taken a license in both Denmark and the states, the test in the states was laughable in comparison. In Denmark, there are like 20 mandatory lessons, wet-surface practice, a theoretical exam and a practical exam, both of which people routinely fail (because they're hard). In the US, I paid 20 bucks, drove around the block, parked and received my license.

In hindsight, getting my driver's license was uncomfortably easy in the US. We crammed the answers right before the written exam as a class, I did 8(?) hours driving with an adult, and the practical exam was 2 left turns, a k-turn, 2 right turns, and parallel parking between 2 cones.

It's 2,500-3,500 Euros to get a license in Germany. I heard someone paying 6-8k tho.

It's not for anyone else: the non-Tesla AV companies use teleops to at most place breadcrumbs that the vehicle attempts to follow while still in full control of collision avoidance and lower level navigation.

There is never an actual remote driver turning the wheel.

While working at Cruise, i built tech to measure the latency even though they just draw a path. Latency absolutely does matter, otherwise you’re drawing that path through a crowd of people. You admit yourself they still need to be responsible for collisions, which you cannot safely do if the latency exceeds the safe tolerance. It doesn’t matter whether you’re drawing a path or turning a Mario kart steering wheel if the information you’re acting upon is incorrect or outdated.

Read my comment again... the vehicle is doing collision avoidance.

If Cruise really rolled out teleops that relied on low latency reactions from remote operators to not drive into crowds (not to mention perfectly reliable uplink), I'll have to file that away under reasons they're not around anymore.

Meanwhile, Waymo is doing 500,000+(!) rides every week.

They are indeed https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukLgCJUeBuI

When I attempt to get a drivers lic, I'm required to have 20/40 vision in at least one eye. That 2 arc minute resolution. In theory I can turn my head and use my mirrors such that I can see almost 360 degrees around. This suggests that a robotaxi should have equivalent or better resolution, and a teleoperator should be able to view those video streams at this 20/40 vision. I doubt that's happening, which makes me wonder why they're allowed to drive these vehicles with less visual acuity than is required to get a drivers license.

Just nuts this company is so highly valued still. Just clown level execution the whole way down.

Everything about every company he's ever been involved in has been a clown show, including Paypal. Though in Paypal's case it was just outright stealing people's money under the guise of "suspicious activity" or "terms of service violation."

He's the PT Barnum of our age.

Does anyone know how the tele operators for either this or waymo interface with the vehicle? Do they have like a sim racing sort of setup? Are they trying to do this through an xbox controller type of thing? I know the military went that route.

At least for Waymo, the remote control is not nearly that direct. The human operators suggest a route through a confusing scene, but the self driving remains in control for executing that suggested route, and may reject it.

A remote operator driving directly, via a racing sim setup or an Xbox controller, just isn't safe. Too much latency, lack of visibility, and connection unreliability.

Waymo doesn’t have remote operators in the same way Tesla does. They can assist with making a decision on what to do if the car is stuck, but they do not remotely drive the car the way Tesla does.

W-A-S-D on a Dell keyboard wouldn't surprise me.

Hey, like so many others, I managed to beat NFS Underground 1 and 2, Most Wanted and Hot Pursuit using only the budget brand e-waste special keyboard, no analog controllers.

IIRC some of the top NFS players also used the keyboard instead of fancy racing syms.

So it's probably possible to control real life cars with a keyboard, provided they implement dedicated input filtering, PID controllers or Kalman filters, and throttle maps, instead of having a key press just be 100% gas/break.

Unless you beat them without crashing once that’s not impressive in a real world context.

Life doesn’t have saves to reload.

You can't win internationally competitive racing games if you crash since your competition who doesn't crash will beat you.

So if they win competitions with a keyboard it means they can drive without crashing.

Neither does mudrunner and snowrunner and I play with a keyboard.

Tesla's setup are a bunch of desks with steering wheels crammed together in a normal call center [0]. Waymo doesn't do teleoperation, but other companies exist that have like Vay. Compare their setup [1].

[0] https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GuE3ie2WcAAyeWs?format=jpg&name=...

[1] https://imageio.forbes.com/specials-images/imageserve/6828f0...

It must be hard to resist to drive the GTA way with such a setup

They’re called off ramps for a reason right?

I assume/hope that Tesla teleoperators are required to have drivers licenses in the states in which the cars they are operating are located?

Given that some of these teleoperators are in the Philipines, and Tesla's sterling reputation for adhering to regulation and laws, I'm going to hazard my own guess.

Why the blatant lies tho? Waymo people are in Philipines. And when power went out in SF entire Waymo fleet died too because teleops couldn't take over...

https://www.techspot.com/news/111233-waymo-admits-autopilot-...

Waymo does do teleoperation [1], and they defend its use [2]. Human fallback isn't something to be ashamed about. AGI doesn't exist at the moment.

[1] https://waymo.com/blog/2024/05/fleet-response/

[2] https://www.reuters.com/technology/waymo-defends-use-remote-...

The second paragraph of your link says Waymo does not do teleoperation.

"Much like phone-a-friend, when the Waymo vehicle encounters a particular situation on the road, the autonomous driver can reach out to a human fleet response agent for additional information to contextualize its environment. The Waymo Driver does not rely solely on the inputs it receives from the fleet response agent and it is in control of the vehicle at all times."

This is different from a remote operator directly controlling accelerator, steering, and brakes.

That's not teleoperation. Teleoperation has a human directly in the control loop, so latency and stability of the connection directly impacts the vehicle system's ability to maintain safety, because the input has to go vehicle<->network<->human to produce an output.

What those blog posts are talking about is a different strategy called remote assistance where the vehicle remains the only thing in the control loop, but a human provides guidance to help the computer navigate itself. This makes the latency and stability of the connection much less important for maintaining safety.

It's not unheard of for companies in the industry that use remote assistance to also have an local option for remote control (for things like lot operations and vehicle rescue events), but that's not part of routine on-road operations and it's usually limited to a <5mph limp mode where the operator is physically present.

Waymo absolutely does NOT do teleoperation in the sense that a remote driver is directly controlling steering, braking, and acceleration. Instead they at most route the car. The self-driver is directly controlling the car at all times.

"In the most ambiguous situations, the Waymo Driver takes the lead, initiating requests through fleet response to optimize the driving path. Fleet response can influence the Waymo Driver's path, whether indirectly through indicating lane closures, explicitly requesting the AV use a particular lane, or, in the most complex scenarios, explicitly proposing a path for the vehicle to consider. The Waymo Driver evaluates the input from fleet response and independently remains in control of driving. This collaboration enhances the rider experience by efficiently guiding them to their destinations.

The Waymo Driver prioritizes the safest course of action in a given moment. In some situations, even with inputs from fleet response, the Waymo driver may come to a stop if it determines that is the safest course of action. Once the car comes to a stop, it can autonomously resume operations, and in other instances, it may require additional support from Waymo Roadside Assistance to retrieve the vehicle manually. "

They literally admitted having team in Philippines and people in this thread literally twisted that around https://www.techspot.com/news/111233-waymo-admits-autopilot-...

They literally said the opposite of what that blogspam summary says they did. https://archive.is/6K8d6

"Waymo’s [remote assistance] agents provide advice and support to the Waymo Driver but do not directly control, steer, or drive the vehicle.”

Your reading comprehension is terrible.

They have examples here: https://waymo.com/blog/2024/05/fleet-response/

The Waymo asks questions like "is this road closed?" and they also have a UI where they can designate in what orientation and where the Waymo should go to so that a path is drawn.

They don't live-control the vehicles. It's a pretty cool solution to the problem.

Phantom Auto has folks using Logitech wheels at home to drive forklifts.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zGK5YVaQ2A

So not only do they still not have truly unsupervised cars, they also remotely drive them sometimes, and their remote drivers have helpfully demonstrated why that’s a terrible idea.

Tesla is such an embarrassment.

Why are we allowing this? Who does it benefit at all? People would lose their minds if you tried this in commercial aviation, yet we're allowing it for something far more dangerous that even with human operators kills people all the time. Absolutely insane.

doing the math would be a bit laborious, but does anyone happen to know the kinetic energy embodied in a tesla going the full "ludicrous" velocity?, which by all acounts, can happen very quickly in a short distance.

According to Tesla, the remotely operated Teslas are limited to 10mph.

https://www.markey.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/company_response...

The article describes the incidents. Both incidents happened at < 10 mph, did not involve other vehicles, and ended up with nothing more than some scratches to the vehicle. The "crashes" from the title is yellow journalism.

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